Father's Day
by Blablover5
Summary: A whole bunch of very short stories about the Dragon Age guys as dads.
1. Dad Cullen

"Daddy?"

"Go back to sleep," Cullen mumbles, his instincts taking over before his mind acknowledges there's an unwanted presence in his bedroom. Stuffing the pillow tighter over his head, he tries to fade back to sleep. He doesn't need to check the window to know dawn is far away.

"Daddy!" the tug grows more incessant, his daughter not about to give up for anything. She's far too much like her mother.

Groaning, Cullen lifts his face from the mattress. His skin became so molded to the folds of the bed in his exhaustion, he's surprised half of it doesn't remind behind. "What is it now?" he growls. For two weeks, his four-year-old would tiptoe into their room and tug on his sleeve until he'd awaken. It was growing on his last nerve.

"There's a monster," she picks at her nightgown, wide elven eyes reflecting back his familiar honey glare. It isn't fear in his little girl's face. No, she's angry because once again her father is failing in his duty to help chase away all the scary monsters.

"Again?" Cullen struggles to pull himself from the siren call of his bed. Sleep, blissful once uninterrupted sleep. Before he dooms his feet to the floor he turns to the surprisingly quiet form beside him. "Love, isn't it your turn?"

Despite her pretense of slumber, she snorts, "I've killed enough monsters already, thank you." She tries to wad the pillow tighter to her head with her stump.

Accepting defeat, Cullen breaks from the loving embrace of his mattress to place cold feet upon the stone ground. His daughter, his reason for living, bounds off – occasionally stopping to tell him to get a move on. Yes. How dare he take his time in the middle of the night.

At the threshold of her room, bleary Cullen stumbles against the doorframe. He watches with a wary eye as his daughter digs through the nightstand. "Very good," a yawn yanks open his mouth.

Big brown eyes beam up at him just as his daughter slots the wooden shield onto her tiny arm. The other lifts her practice sword higher as she waits for orders from her commander.

The might ex-lion of Skyhold, dressed in linen pants with his hair splattered to the side, manages another yawn and mumbles, "Parry, parry. Thrust. Make sure to…" he shakes the third yawn off as his eyes close for rest, "To keep your shield up."

Unaware of her father trying to sleep while standing, the girl fights off all the evil monsters just as her mommy and daddy taught her to.


	2. Dad Alistair

"Daddy, daddy, daddy!" Thirty pounds of pure energy leapt off the Vigil's stone floor and straight into his lap. Alistair barely had a chance to drop the dagger he'd been honing before ecstatic brown eyes peered deep into his. He wanted to laugh at his daughter acting like he returned after a month's journey instead of her emerging from a much needed nap, but she had _that_ look.

It was a look that said he'd better shape up or she'd be putting him on an ice floe. Or in the stocks. Or whatever punishment she dreamed up in her young mind. Though he knew the damn dwarf was providing a lot of these suggestions to her.

"What is it, pumpernickel?" Alistair asked, trying to rub away the sore spot where her knee tried to impale his gut. Better it hit the stomach than elsewhere.

With a bright, cheesy grin her mother insisted could only originate from him, his daughter yanked both boar-bristle brush and a pile of ribbons from behind her back. Festoon of ribbons, really. The kind you'd find knotted into a horse's mane that was secretly plotting to kill whoever tied them there.

"Do my hair right!" his little tyrant ordered, shoving both brush and ribbons into his hands.

"Are you sure?" he asked, remembering far too well the tears, and wails, and gnashings the last time.

"Yes!" she kept on, spinning in his lap so she could stare longingly up at the mirror. Her hands smoothed out her lap as if she were in skirts instead of trousers. Then she patted into her snag of blonde hair so delicately like a fainting lady, he sighed. There was no escape.

Laying the ribbons upon the counter, Alistair began to worry the bristles through the roots of her hair.

"No tangles!" she ordered, as if needing to remind him.

"That's what _we_ tell _you_. But who goes and rubs a chicken on her head?" he muttered, one hand gripping onto the hair at the roots so it wouldn't tug, while the brush did its best through the rat's nest.

His daughter found the whole idea funny as she once again launched into the tale of the chicken that thought her skull was an egg. It'd warped over the weeks, becoming more fantastical with each telling. That was her mother's influence 2000%.

Okay, maybe a touch of him too. But only when she included mentions of dogs.

"Daddy?" she twisted her head, yanking the hair through the brush instead of the other way. Concerned brown eyes stared up at him, and - in the most serious voice for a four-year-old - she asked, "Do I have pretty hair?"

"The prettiest in thedas," he assured her while picking up a small tuft of blonde hair and knotting a ribbon on the end. With her wild mane more or less tamed, though when it rained he needed a miracle, this part was easier. With another curl of hair, he added yet another ribbon.

"Carter said it was too curly," she pouted, her bottom lip sticking out far.

"Well, Carter's a doody head," Alistair assured her, getting a bright smile through the mirror. Half of his work landed on her shoulders, his daughter carefully inspecting each knot of the ribbons in shades of reds, blues, and yellows. But no greens. She hated green.

A true Ferelden woman through and through.

"There we go," he finished, his fingers sore from all the knots he put in. With a big smile, his little girl shook her head. The piles of ribbons knocked into each other, her curls quickly reforming to encircle her noggin.

"What do you think?" Alistair asked, bending closer to the girl in his lap.

"It's..." her eyes drifted from his to the mirror, then she whipped her head around. Quite a few blue and red ribbons smacked into his cheek as she shouted, "Mummy!"

Leaping from his lap, his daughter ran full tilt towards the woman in armor standing in the doorway. "Mummy, mummy, mummy!" she kept shouting before coming to a full stop before her. With a hand brushed up against the ribbon-coated hair already curling around her head, their daughter asked, "What do you fink?"

His love laughed, then dropped to a knee, "You asked Daddy to do your hair, didn't you?"

"Yup!"

"Well," she picked up their daughter in her arms and spun her around to face Alistair. The girl shook her mane once more, proud of the golden curls sticking out with the help of the mass of ribbons. She gave out her attempt at a lion's roar, which - since they'd never seen a lion - had more in common with a dog bark.

Alistair walked to both, a hand wrapping around his love and their wild lion of a child. After pressing a kiss to his lips, his wife said, "He's wonderful at it."


	3. Dad Fenris

**Fenris** : Now we add the eggs to the...

 _*His daughter, Arianna, drops the one in her hand*_

 **Arianna** : # *$

 **Fenris** _*whips his head over to her in shock*_ : Arianna! You do not use that word! Where did you hear such language?

 _*Arianna thinks back*_

 **Fenris** : That # *$ mage will get us all killed.

 **Fenris** : It's up to # *$ing me to fix this.

 **Fenris** : What? Don't you dare! # *$

 **Fenris** : *rolls eyes* # *$ &**

 **Arianna** _*looks up at her father*_ : Um, uncle Varric.

 **Fenris** : That # *$ dwarf.


	4. Dad Zevran

Slipping from his bed, tiny feet padded against each of the floorboards. They made certain to skip the squeaky ones, his back flush with the wall until he opened the door. It whined on its hinges, causing a shadow in bed to sit up fast. A blade appeared from under the pillow, whipping at nothing, before bleary eyes turned to find a small boy in the doorway.

"Dad?" he asked, his voice soft.

"Donato," Zevran sighed, digging the sleep from his eyes. "What troubles you?" he asked while focusing upon the boy that roused him so quickly and easily.

His son crept closer, fingers worrying a small blanket. When those wide elven eyes landed upon his father, he whispered, "There's a monster in my room."

Zev snorted once, then his weary eyes drifted to his love _conveniently_ asleep and missing all of this. Well, she had a long day. Best to let her rest...this time.

"Dad..." Donato knocked his knees together and Zevran smiled.

With a comforting hand upon his shoulder, he said, "Of course, I will scare it away. Come." Zev threw off the thin blanket that wasn't necessary in these Antivan summers. With bare feet he too padded as silently as a cat upon the creaking old floorboards. His smart son followed suit, almost all the way up on his tiptoes.

"Stay behind me," Zevran ordered, his son nodding.

Upon reaching the room in question, Zevran unearthed his bedside dagger from the back of his pajama pants. The door to his son's room was left open a sliver, no doubt from when Donato rushed to find him. But so too was the window.

Moonlight lanced through the gap, highlighting the fallen blanket tugged from the boy's bed. With barely a whisper to his voice, Zevran asked, "Where did you see the monster?"

A shaking finger pointed towards the closet before Donato bit down on his baby blanket. His mother knit it while she grew him, often cursing up a storm when dropping a stitch. For all of the restarts and - on occasions - giving up on fix the problem, his son was rarely without his comfort. Buffing back his boy's dark hair, Zevran pressed a quick kiss to the tan forehead.

"Grazie. Remain here," he ordered, pointing to the hallway.

Removing the shroud of silence, Zevran stomped into his son's bedroom. His voice bellowed, "Hello? I say, any monsters about in hiding? Would you be so kind as to clear out? You see, you've stumbled into a boy's bedroom and he quite needs his sleep."

With his back to the closet, Zevran bent down and hefted up his son's bed. He tried to glance under, making certain nothing slimy lurked below. "Mr. Monster? We've had quite enough of you," his voice echoed over the piles of books his son was always bent over in.

As Zevran moved to stand up, his ears twitched. The closet door opened fast and a shadow hurled itself forward. Before it could sink blade or claw in, Zevran sliced his dagger backwards. The edge cut straight through the assassin's kidneys, causing the man to drop his own weapon in shock.

Slowly, the elf turned to watch realization spark in the Crow's eyes. "Hello monster," Zevran smiled with all his teeth. Yanking his blade out quickly, he stabbed up through the ribcage, striking the heart and finishing the man off in an instant. He struggled to catch the falling bulk. It was impressive the man could even scale this high, much less fit inside his son's messy closet.

"Daddy..." Donato took a step off from the wall, and Zevran whipped his head up at that.

His boy froze, realizing his mistake, and Zev softened immediately. "Don't worry, Piccolo. Daddy will never let the monsters get you."

A glint in his usually bookish face transformed into a wolfish grin. With a proud raise of his head, Donato declared, "I know. Daddy stops all the monsters."


	5. Dad Hawke & Anders

"Dad?"

Water lapped against the pair of twin lines plunged deep into the murky depths. Hawke rustled a hand through his beard, trying to scratch at an itch buried somewhere on his chin. He almost had it when concerned eyes twisted to his.

"Yes, son. What is it?"

Malcolm looked particularly perturbed, his lips twisted in a knot as he watched his line do little more than sit undisturbed in the weeds. A trio of cattails wafted in the breeze, cooling the pair sitting on a dock.

After wringing out his neck full of whatever concerns were there, the boy asked, "What are we doing?"

"Fishing! I told you all about fishing. How my father used to take us whenever the spring thaw came in. Your aunt would squeal at the worms we dug out of Mom's garden, and Carver..." Hawke fell quiet a moment and shook his head, "Carver got it in his head he could catch fish with his barehands. Never worked. Only thing he ever caught was a snapping turtle, which was none too pleased to have its leg grabbed."

He laughed at the memory, clinging to the image of his brother's panicking face, the hiss of the turtle trying to bite his fingers off, and how far that poor thing flew when Carver sensed up enough to throw it. It didn't do him any good to remember the reason Carver wasn't here anymore. Though, Maker his brother would be an awful influence on his nephew.

"I know we're fishing," Malcolm smarted back, "I'm not stupid!"

And some days it felt as if Carver never left them.

"I want to know _why_ we're fishing."

"Because," Hawke twisted around to eye up Anders sitting in the bushes and licking his wounds. "Your other Dad is shite at catching rabbits."

"I almost had it this time!" Anders called back, well aware of the two watching him. Outdoors and wildlife was not the man's strong suit, but he was willing to try.

"Sure you did, Sweetheart," Hawke called with a cheery wave. "Sure you did." Wrapping a hand around his son's shoulders, Hawke stared out across the still lake, watching the setting sun play off the water.

"What if we don't catch anything?" his son worried.

Hawke leaned down close to Malcolm's ear to whisper, "We'll sneak into Kirkwall. I think you're finally old enough to see the inside of the Hanged Man."

"Hawke!" Anders shouted, the man possessing the ears of a bat.

"Yes, fine, not until he's thirteen," Hawke accepted before winking at his son. He had to maintain his cool dad status after all.

"Dad," Malcolm brushed the bottom of his bare foot over the water, "I'm glad we came camping."

"Me too," he admitted, before glancing behind them at the mage snagged in the tent lines. "Anders, not so much."


	6. Dad Dorian

Inconsolable screams banged against Dorian's ears, his hands stuffed full with the wiggling chest of his three-year-old daughter. Her cheeks were flushed in anger, tears falling faster than any could hope to catch them. And, she was having a complete and utter meltdown in public. He tried to smile at the concerned citizens seemingly worried the _evil Tevinter Magister_ absconded with a child for his blood magic, but his little girl wasn't making it easy.

"What's the problem?" he asked, hoping that clinging to logic would work. Maker's sake, why wasn't her father here? Her better father who had some kind of child whispering magic that passed Dorian clean by.

"I...I...I..." she snuffled, snot bubbling out of her nose. Absently, he rolled the hem of his sleeve down to wipe it away. And to think before her existence, Dorian would have been horrified of such an endeavor. Now, it was a Tuesday.

"I GOT A BOOBOO!" her tears ripped into a scream, Dorian finally noticing she was holding onto her elbow.

He reached to pick her tiny fingers off, but she held on tighter, eyes glaring at him. "No!" she shouted, her grip turning white as it increased.

Dorian sighed, "I have to see what you did..."

"No!" she whipped her head back and forth, tiny pigtails thrashing into his mouth.

"Fine," he accepted, rolling through his meager medicinal spells. "I'll heal you then while you..."

"No! Don't want it!" the girl fumed, her pain seemingly forgotten as she glared at him. "No magic!"

"Why not?" Dorian gulped, growing more aware of the people wondering abut the mage in their midst. Their daughter did not have anything approaching an indoor voice.

The apple of his eye stomped her pink shoed foot and snarled, "Don't want magic."

Not even four and did she already hate magic? Fear mages? Hate them without question? It seemed to happen quicker in the south than he thought possible. "Topolina..." his cheek butted into her forehead, Dorian trying to ignore an awkward stink of failure flooding his senses.

Greedy little fingers fished into one of his pockets, and he watched as a spool of lime green bandages plopped out onto the ground. "You little..." he sighed, "this is what you want, isn't it?"

"Uh huh!" she nodded vehemently, her fingers falling from her booboo so he could wrap it up. There was barely little more than a small nick, but Dorian took the full green roll and bandaged his daughter's entire arm from wrist to armpit.

Giggling, she swung her now immobile arm around like a windmill, watching the pretty color. Dorian rubbed his eyes, staggering up to his weary feet while sighing. Fatherhood would be the death of him. It certainly didn't do much for one's ego.

"Come along, we should get you home for a nap," he muttered, picking up her non-injured hand. "Maker knows I could use one as well."

His daughter twirled her prized arm once more before big, hazel eyes turned up to him. "I love you, Daddy!" she shouted so loud half of Orlais had to hear it.

With a smile blooming in his heart and quickly overtaking the rest of him, Dorian scooped her up in his arms. "I love you too, my little mouse."


	7. Dad Solas

He allowed himself one more embrace of his children. His daughter wiggled in the tight clasp, her eyes upon a bright butterfly flitting above the grass, but Solas wouldn't let her go. At least, not yet.

"Behave," he said, his eyes drifting from his daughter to his taller son. "Listen to your mother, do your chores."

"Yes, Father," Colwyn pronounced, both hands clasped behind his back. Not yet eight and he was quick to assume responsibility. Solas wished he could admire such a trait in the boy, but it was his doing that caused its creation. If only he'd found a way to remain longer.

Forcing on a smile, Solas rubbed his son's shoulders, "And try to have fun tomorrow."

A grin broke through the serious turn, Colwyn's eyes shining bright. Rubbing into his neck, Solas finally broke the hug and said, "Go on and get washed up for supper. Your mother's been hard at work for it."

"Okay," Colwyn cried, grabbing onto his baby sister's hand. He tugged her away from the promise of the butterfly, the pair of them dashing up the steps into what was meant to be safety.

"Must you leave now?" his wife asked.

"Yes," Solas said, his head bent in contemplation. She thought he wished to be as far from his family as possible, but it was the exact opposite. He did this so one day there would be no long weeks or months without them. So they could all live in peace once and for all.

Gracing a hand over her shoulder, he sighed, "Falon'din has offered to parley and I must be there to make certain our machinations do not become unraveled." His wife frowned at the potential truce one of the Evanuris offered their little resistance. Solas ignored the own warning in his gut to assure her, "It is a good sign of things to come."

"But what is a day's wait? Colwyn's birthday is tomorrow."

It was never wise to make the gods wait.

Solas frowned at the old thought drifting in his mind, the one he obliterated with time and perspective. Shaking it away, he smiled upon his wife, "I left his present in my desk. I hope he'll enjoy it."

Time stilled, the vibrant colors of his family's home fading to a dull grey. Only the bright red pop of his wife's lips remained in stark contrast to the draining world as Solas stepped away from the memory. Cold air seeped from his lips, his head wearied by centuries of grief.

"He never opened the small music box I found for him. It played his favorite song about the boy who created rainbows." There were no tears in his eyes, but they loomed forever in his heart. He clung to this one day, the last day before fire rained from the sky. Before Falon'din took from him every excuse he had to remain civil. Before Fen'Harel was born.

With a bowed head, Solas turned away from the creaking house. He did not wish his final memories to be of the ash and cinders still smoldering by the time he arrived to futile try to save them. He wanted to see the doorframe into the warm kitchen marking his children's growth, to remember the fireplace decorated in his children's wild pickings, the three mirrors they'd wave through to their grandparents and great grandparents. But after this day, it all slipped through his fingers as dust in the wind.

"Why not stay?"

Solas sighed, partially startled by the compassion lingering in one of his most guarded memories. "That is not possible, Cole. I left. I left them... Foolishly, I thought the Evanuris above such cruelty. I learned."

"But," Cole's watering blue eyes opened even wider, the spirit watching the grey trails of the woman and her children walking into their dinner alone. "You want to."

A solitary sob escaped from Solas, a hand clasping to his mouth. "I did. Every night I wished I'd done as my wife asked. That I'd remained with them, been with my son as he turned nine. Read my daughter her favorite story."

"You could not have saved them."

"No," he wiped the tears away, "but I would have died with them." Solas tried to twist from the dark thoughts that bled from him into the world around. Red sparked from his being through the fade, warping his thoughts until the sky shattered. Fragments of melted glass and burning wood appeared next to an idyllic home. He could never return to what was, no matter how many steps he took forward. All he had was this last day.

A hand landed upon his shoulder, Solas twisting his chin to find Cole staring through the front door. "There is still time," the spirit said.

Solas wiped the tears from his eyes, his back straightening. The furs of Fen'Harel melted from his body. The armor of the Evanuris destroyer faded into a simple white sweater and leggings. With a slow, uncertain step, he walked once more up those stairs he never thought to revisit. It creaked in the middle, Solas' heart lightening as a hundred memories raced to fill it.

He'd kept them locked away, preserved in jars and stashed deep inside his heart so he'd never have to suffer the pain of their loss. Memories of his daughter learning to slide down the steps on her bottom. His son jumping from the top into the grass endlessly while insisting Solas look on.

Grabbing onto the latch, Solas threw open the door and stepped into the still beating heart of his family. "Daddy's home," he shouted, three faces turning to embrace him one more time.


	8. Dad Blackwall

"Sir," the midwife's face peered through the crack in the door, startling Blackwall out of a hazy half-dream. He didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until he tried to stand and nearly crashed to the floor.

Whacking into his leg to get it awake, he stumbled through the cracked open door to find a pile of blankets in the stuffy woman's arms. She rocked it a moment before passing it all to Blackwall's arms.

"Meet your daughter."

Breath clogged in his throat, his weary eyes drifting through the swaddling to find a tiny pink face safely hidden inside. With the gentlest touch he never thought himself possible of, Blackwall swooped aside the edge of the blanket to stare into his daughter's face.

"She's..." he began when her eyes opened. They stared directly up at him, into him. Those innocent, fresh-into-the-world eyes ripped away every facade he ever wore. Delved to find every lie he ever told. They knew him better than he knew himself. Past the Warden, under the soldier, even beyond the scabby-kneed boy who tried to find a place in this world. She found him.

"Thom?" his wife asked from the bed.

Tears dripping down his cheeks, he cupped his baby girl to his chest and proclaimed, "She sees me."


	9. Grandpappy Bull

**Inquisitor** : Bull!

 **Bull** : Yes, Boss?

 **Inquisitor** : What's with all of these children?

 **Bull** : Well, that one there rolling in the mud is Stitches and Dalish's. Those two trying to set the grass on fire are Rocky's. Skinner's is up in that tree, and... Crap, I ain't seen Grim's in awhile but I'm sure the kid's fine. Mostly fine. Probably.

 **Bull** _*plucks a small infant out of the harness on his chest*_ : And this last one's Krem's. Got his smart mouth and everything.

 **Inquisitor** : Okay...but why are you alone with all of these kids?

 **Bull** : Chargers are on a job and someone's got to keep these little ankle biters from getting into trouble. Who better than Grampy Bull?

 **Rocky's two begin to chant** : Grampy Bull, Grampy Bull.

 **Bull** : That's right. Here. _*passes the baby to the Inquisitor, whose eyes open wide in shock*_

 **Inquisitor** : Wha...what are you doing? Where are you going?

 **Bull** : Grampy Bull needs a nap. Figure you can take it from here, Boss. They're like wrestling a dragon, but worse.

 **Inquisitor** : What?!

 **Bull** : You'll be fine. _*He waves while walking up the hill, leaving the Inquisitor alone with the horde*_

 **Bull** _*turns back*_ : Oh, but be careful. A few of them bite.

 **Inquisitor** : Bull? Bull!

 **Skinner's kid** _*tugs on the Inquisitor's leather pajamas*_ : I have to go poopy.

 **Inquisitor** : I hate that man.


End file.
